Lucy’s Big Girl Bed & Ruffled Bedskirt

Do you remember the girls’ nursery?

It was all kinds of black, white, and pink.

Tulle cribskirts that my mother in law and I made…and swore we would never, ever, ever make anything with tulle for as long as we both shall live.  Miles and miles and miles of ruffled tulle.  (That just got eaten up by the vacuum cleaner when the mattresses were lowered.)

Fancy loopy wall lettering.

Pink and black damask bumper deliciousness.

And it looked just like this…until the girls started moving around.

And then this was nothing more than a photo of how things used to be.  Harkening back to days of yonder and all that.

::sigh::

And then there was the time that Lucy peeled the wall decals off.

And I really, truly, seriously wanted nothing more but to burst into tears.

Because they were my favesies.

And not cheap.  I had splurged.

This is why I can’t have nice things, people.

Well, it also turns out that we always seem to have to move our kids to big beds really young because we need their cribs for incoming babies.

This is what happens when you have four kids in five years. Cribs are hot commodities in These Parts.

Lucky for us, we were handed down a like new twin mattress and a cute little headboard/shelf doohicky.

That was an ugly brown wood color and was begging to be painted.

Obvs.

(Funny side note: as I was painting the headboard, a little neighbor girl came over to play.  I heard her ask Henry “What’s she doing?”  “Oh, that’s my mom.  She’s painting it.  She paints everything.”  Hysterical not only his explanation…but the fact that the girl had not quite seen someone painting a piece of furniture before?  Apparently not all moms spend their weekends with cans of spray paint????  Weird.)

I had the duvet cover for a while already, and since it wasn’t the black/white/pink thing I had going on in the room, I figured I needed to embrace the rainbow color gig to make it work.

Ruffled bedskirt.  Duh.  I mean, what ELSE could I possibly put there???  A plain white one?

Pshaw.

Damn you Pinterest.

Except that I am not a very smart girl.

One would think that after the debacle of ruffling yard after yard after yard of tulle, I would have known better than to want to make yet ANOTHER ruffly bedskirt.

One. would. think.

It was an easy project.

Easy, as in, not technically difficult.  If you can sew a straight line, you can do this.  But forever and ever time consuming and BORING.  You basically cut long strips of fabric, hem them, ruffle them, and attach.  Easy right?

But those strips are looooooong.  And that means a reallllly looooooong hem.  And a reallllly looooong ruffle.

Times FOUR.

After about the second ruffle you want to jump off a bridge…but not before first punching whoever’s idea this was in the face.  Until you realize it was YOU, so basically you want to punch yourself in the face and then jump off a bridge.

And the ruffles don’t even go around the third side.

That’s just how lazy I am folks.

Also added to the room was a quick makeover to this old stool.

We’ve had it in the garage after pulling it out of grandma’s garage over a year ago.  I knew it was adorable and needed some love, but I didn’t quite have a spot for it.

So it sat in Andy’s garage taunting him mercilessly for a year.

He can’t stand when I put my stuff in there.  So this made me happy.

A special thank you to Henry for photobombing my stool picture.

And yes, that is sidewalk chalk on my stucco.  We run a classy joint around here.

A (sloppy) coat of teal spraypaint, new foam, and lime green zebra print?!

Say it with me: Lime. Green. Zebra.

HELLO!!!

I saw it in Joann’s and pretty much had to make up a reason to use it.

Love it.  Love how it turned out.  I kinda want to steal it for my room, except it won’t match.

Although I should probably touch up the paint.

Nah.  Who am I kidding?  Not only will I not do it…because, once again, I’m lazy…but Lucy’s gonna chip the thing up anyway.

Embrace chaos.

My new mantra.

The stool sits at the foot of her bed to help her get up.

Previously, the bed was a little too tall and she would have to take a running start and jump to get up.

Except that she is the clumsiest kid in the history of the universe.

So she would take off running and then oftentimes didn’t quite jump high enough and would just bounce off, flying backwards and landing on her rump.

And then she’d cry.

And then she’d get up and go running full force again.

Repeat until she made it.  Her curls all flailing around wildly.

Funny, yes.

Efficient, notsomuch.

Besides, now I have the perfect place to hang the sweet little bunting that Meg sent me.

It works perfectly with the crazy bedskirt and heart deals we have going on in there.

And that, my friends, is how I add even more work to my already busy life.

Not so smart.  But cute, right?

{P.S. For those of you bound to email me and ask: the duvet is from IKEA, the sheets are from Kohl’s, I followed this tutorial, and got all of my fabric at Joann’s.  And if you’d like to send me something for my birthday next month, boxes of hundred dollar bills are always welcome.}

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jeannett

I'm a mom to four. A wife to one. I believe in story. I love telling you about mine and would love to hear yours. There's really no sense in wasting our suffering and not sharing in each other's joy. We're all in this together...even if it doesn't always feel like it.

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